ABSTRACT
Human beings have engaged in mass mutual destruction for much of our history. But only with the development of the atom bomb at the end of World War II did the self-annihilation of the human species become technologically possible. Today the dramatic manifestation of the consequences of global warming in melting ice caps, vanishing islands, devastating storms, and disappearing species is rapidly putting the question of human survival front and center on national and global agendas. Indeed, global warming represents in particularly pure form the dilemmas of human self-annihilation. Governments, corporations, and other powerful institutions evolved at a time when competitive self-preservation often worked at least for some, not an era in which it leads to the destruction of all. They have grown and prospered by pursuing the short-term interests of their citizens and stockholders in competition with the citizens and stockholders of other countries and companies.
